Dexamethasone and Opiate Addiction/Withdrawal

[SuperPsych]

I plan on detoxing and withdrawling from a few months of daily morphine abuse in the next day or two. I was researching the meds that are available to me and if they help alleviate withdrawal symptoms. When I got to Dexamethasone this is all that I could find. I couldn't find anything else. Now this article seems like it has my answer but I don't understand what it's saying. I was wondering if somebody more knowledgeable could put this into layman's terms for me?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9296341

"Dexamethasone has been shown to inhibit opiate withdrawal, in an in vitro model. In this respect, we suggested that dexamethasone could reduce opiate withdrawal by blocking the release of prostaglandins' precursor, arachidonic acid through protein synthesis dependent-mechanisms (1). Since arachidonic acid is released by the enzyme phospholipase A2 (PLA2) in the present paper we evaluate whether dexamethasone effect may by related to inhibition of PLA2 activity. Therefore, the effect of a neutralizing anti-lipocortin-1 antibody and a polyclonal anti-type II extracellular phospholipase A2 antibody on the opiate withdrawal in vitro was considered. Following a 4 min in vitro exposure to morphine a strong contracture of guinea-pig isolated ileum was observed after the addition of naloxone. Dexamethasone at concentration of 5x10(-5) M reduces of 50% morphine withdrawal and the polyclonal anti-type II extracellular PLA2 antibody (in a dilution 1:1000) mimicked dexamethasone inhibitory effect. Incubation of the ileum preparation with a neutralizing anti-lipocortin-1 antibody (at a dilution of 1:10.000) 30 min before dexamethasone reverted the steroid effects. These results suggest that dexamethasone inhibition of opiate withdrawal is due to extracellular type II PLA2 inhibition through lipocortin-1."

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

The sympathetic activation of a glucocorticoid during opiate withdrawal would be bad in my opinion. There is already a lot of sympathetic rebound during opiate withdrawal, hence the efficacy of Clonidine and such. Dexamethasone can cause some serious insomnia.

 

[SuperPsych]

Cool, thanks for the help! Luckily I have a few Clonidine. The article is super confusing to me; I still dont really understand what Dexamethasone does in terms of opiate withdrawal. Do you think it might make an alright follow up med? Like after I get mostly through withdrawal, just some lingering symptoms (I'm thinking mainly mental), would taking Dexamethasone then possibly help?

 

[aced126]

Cool, thanks for the help! Luckily I have a few Clonidine. The article is super confusing to me; I still dont really understand what Dexamethasone does in terms of opiate withdrawal. Do you think it might make an alright follow up med? Like after I get mostly through withdrawal, just some lingering symptoms (I'm thinking mainly mental), would taking Dexamethasone then possibly help?

Just going by the paper, dexamethasone mediated prostaglandin inhibition could probably help with a lot of the physical symptoms, although I don't really see the advantages of using this instead of a normal NSAID. That said, some people do report euphoria after acute glucocorticoid administration. I wouldn't stay on them for long though, for various reasons.

 

[SuperPsych]

Awesome! I really appreciate the help. The thing appealing to me besides it's help with withdrawal is the reported euphoria. For that reason I will probably start taking it once the physical symptoms are starting to go down. I figured it'd be good for the lingering depression. I only have a couple so it'd be a couple days tops